I) on the matter of terminologies applied to jihad, she rightly points out that *there is only kinds of jihad. not levels. it's the smaller jihad and the greater jihad.* the jihad against the individual muslim's self is referred to as the greated jihad and the war is the smaller jihad. on this matter i stand corrected.
II) she also questioned the fairness of the following statement i made:
i really doubt the sincerity of the statements made by some muslims that condemn terroristic acts, it simply doesn't fit the precedent patterns of islamic expansion where violence against non-muslim civilians are tolerated.
here is her response:
now, now. base on whose interpretation of right and wrong is this particular post associated to? and violence against non-mulsims? the moors occupied spain for 500 years, has history stated any inhuman acts committed during this period? many, that's my educated guess... so what particular actions against non-muslims are being tolerated by the muslim world?
with regards to this issue, i admit that a) i failed to clarify that the *precendent patterns* i refer to were the islamic conquests of christian lands in the middle ages, and b) i failed to provide documentary evidence in my original post. to rectify this, let me quote Thomas F. Madden, associate professor and chair of the Department of History at Saint Louis University, who authored an article on this issue published in Crisis Magazine, which basically forms many of the premises of my arguments, premises which i may have failed to disclose. i suggest that the reader reads the entire article for a deeper understanding of my views:
Christians in the eleventh century were not paranoid fanatics. Muslims really were gunning for them. While Muslims can be peaceful, Islam was born in war and grew the same way. From the time of Mohammed, the means of Muslim expansion was always the sword. Muslim thought divides the world into two spheres, the Abode of Islam and the Abode of War. Christianity—and for that matter any other non-Muslim religion—has no abode. Christians and Jews can be tolerated within a Muslim state under Muslim rule. But, in traditional Islam, Christian and Jewish states must be destroyed and their lands conquered. When Mohammed was waging war against Mecca in the seventh century, Christianity was the dominant religion of power and wealth. As the faith of the Roman Empire, it spanned the entire Mediterranean, including the Middle East, where it was born. The Christian world, therefore, was a prime target for the earliest caliphs, and it would remain so for Muslim leaders for the next thousand years. With enormous energy, the warriors of Islam struck out against the Christians shortly after Mohammed’s death. They were extremely successful. Palestine, Syria, and Egypt—once the most heavily Christian areas in the world—quickly succumbed. By the eighth century, Muslim armies had conquered all of Christian North Africa and Spain. In the eleventh century, the Seljuk Turks conquered Asia Minor (modern Turkey), which had been Christian since the time of St. Paul. The old Roman Empire, known to modern historians as the Byzantine Empire, was reduced to little more than Greece. In desperation, the emperor in Constantinople sent word to the Christians of western Europe asking them to aid their brothers and sisters in the East.
war is undoubtedly violent, and even in the era of smart weapons, civilians are caught up in war. now let us consider that the those wars, especially in those days, were particuarly violent and they took place in the absence of any international convention governing the rules of war as we have now (i am unaware of any back then), i would pretty much surmise that violence was indeed inflicted upon civilians, and in this case, non-muslim civilians with the aim of converting them to islam.
i leave it to the reader to decide if i was fair in this regard. and so in the spirit of fairness and full disclosure, let me say the war was not the only cause of the rapid expansion of islam, for example, it spread in south and southeast asia through the evangelization efforts of arab traders and missionaries. but my focus however in all about jihad, particularly the minor jihad.
III) on the paragraph, which for the sake of brevity, starts with these words:
although this is highly speculative and i haven't heard of any muslim teaching this...
she asks:
and where is this speculation based on?
my answer: it is purely a product of my own personal speculation. i admit that i do not hold any evidence on this issue, and i am not aware of anybody else who has made the same observations or holds the same opinion. in my post, however, i have emphasized the fact that is purely a product of speculations on my part.
IV) on the following statement i made:
anyway, i think people should overcome their hang-ups with the crusades and really seriously consider the prospect of another crusade in this age.
she declares:
another crusade??? doubt that... g8 would be busy disarming countries with nukes. but it sounds inevitable if religious hatred breeds more religious hatred.
my answer: i'm not promoting any form of religious hatred. thus let me declare that i am in no way advocating or promoting violence against individual muslims. i am however against violence being used a means to promote or advance an ideology or religion. such things ought to be proposed and not imposed on an individual or groups of people.
on a personal note, i do have relatives who have converted to islam. i love and respect them and certainly do not wish any harm to befall on them simply because of the religion they accepted and hold on to.
V)on the following statement in my post:
but then again, after cosidering my own conflicting views, i maybe wrong. in the philippine scenario, muslim groups have been doing their own brand of jihad for years, even during colonial times, and we've managed to survive even when our forefathers didn't call for our own crusade.
she replied:
well, francis, people manage to co-exist.
my answer: although i do believe that communities possessing different traditions, religions and culture may co-exist in harmony and that i hope that such things can be present everywhere, my statement above was not about that. i grievously failed to reveal the context of that statement. in philippine history, the moros, who were muslims, were not under spanish colonial rule. they, however, managed to keep themselves free of colonial rule by frequently launching offensives against christian settlements. this is evidenced by the fact that seaside towns usually had highly fortified churches to guard against muslim pirates who raided them. on the whole, as what i've learned in my freshman history class, although military forces were totally unable to defeat these pirates because of inferior sea vessels (the moro's vessel were actually superior to spanish made vessels in terms of speed), lack of military supplies, and corruption within the ranks (there was actual collusion between some spaniards and moros), they nevertheless prevented total destruction of christian settlements. so christians and moros, for a long time, were not *co-existing* peacefully. this came about only through the intervention of the americans who crushed the defiance of the muslim south and united mindanao into what is now the present republic.
to conclude, let me stress again my total opposition to any form of violence for the sake of advancing or promoting anything. i therefore do not promote nor condone violence against muslims, or of any person of any creed or race.
the point that i wish to point out is that certain elements of islam (*rotten tomatoes* as verlaine put it) are bent on the destruction of non-muslims for the sake of the another worldwide expansion of islam. these people are promoting and spearheading their own form of jihad which patterns itself to the jihad of the middle ages which wiped out the christrian civilization from the middle east. such being the case jihadists worldwide constitute an imminent threat, therefore a modern version of the crusades may be necessary to ensure the survival of the christian world. as the articles i've cited in the previous post and this one, the crusades were largely a defensive (and should always remain defensive in nature) reaction to an iminent threat to the very existence of a medieval christian civilization.
let me also point out it was not my to pretend to be an expert in islamic tradition nor was it my intention to misrepresent islamic doctrine. i will my best in my succeeding posting to include documentary evidence to my allegations. although let me also stress that this is after all 'blog, and the statements i make here are purely personal and never does claim to speak on behalf of other people. there. now, like before, my comment boxes are available for further reactions.
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